


HP Prompts/Drabbles 2018

by HenryMercury



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-03-02 07:25:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13313280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HenryMercury/pseuds/HenryMercury
Summary: This came from a discussion earlier today in the drarry discord about this meme  http://henrymercury.tumblr.com/post/172124907557/porcupine-girl-thelobsterqueen . It was suggested that I might be the depraved soul capable (and for reasons unknown, willing) enough to combine Dostoevsky's Jesus Christ Returns!AU with Carroll's math kink. Written with Wilde's 'only god can judge me, oh wait i’m an atheist' attitude.This is irreverent and silly! Please don't read it if you're devoutly religious and likely to take offence. The same applies to those who are devoted to stories with proper pacing / stories which make sense.





	1. Anonymous asked: Request: Luna/Ginny, trapped in an elevator? Thanks in advance, you rock!

Ginny thinks it's unlikely they'll rent this apartment, given that the shady old lift has shuddered to a halt between the fourth and fifth floors on their way to the _viewing_. To well and truly ice the cake, it's the hottest day they've seen in years, and they've left their wands at home, unable to conceal them under very minimal clothing and not expecting to need them anyway.

Ginny doesn't ask what Luna's doing when she starts unbuttoning her dress. They've already been told it'll be forty minutes before anyone comes to rescue them.

Ginny kicks off her shorts and lifts her singlet over her head. She enjoys the way Luna's eyes catch on her nipples. For a small pair of breasts, they always seem to have a big impact. Luna forgets that her dress is still hanging off her hips, too intent on pressing Ginny up against one of the mirrored lift walls and kissing her—first on the mouth, and then at length across her freckled sternum, hands moving over Ginny's skin with a reverence that, in six years together, hasn't worn out in the slightest. Ginny tangles her hands in Luna's hair the way she likes, wincing at the grabbiness of her sweaty palms.

It isn't long before they're forced to admit it's too hot and stuffy to make out—but sitting around with Luna and discussing anything or nothing is one of Ginny's favourite things to do too.

By the time the lift doors crack open, she finds herself wondering whether they can take the apartment after all; they have good memories here already.


	2. goldentruth813 asked: Hiiii. For ask Drabble scorbus or Jeddy and sharing clothes for aibidil <3

"I swear, Scorp, I don't know where they're all getting to," Al is complaining, pushing back his overgrown, wavy hair in that way Scorpius can't help but track with his eyes, even if he can't with his own fingers.

"It's fine," Scorpius says, gathering up a fresh shirt, jumper and pair of trousers from his own trunk and holding them out. "Just wear these."

Al, who's running late for his DADA extension class, hurriedly swaps the boxer shorts he sleeps in for Scorpius' clothes.

"Do I look okay?" he asks, in lieu of dashing to the dorm bathroom to check himself in a mirror.

"Perfectly fine," Scorpius says. It's an understatement; he thinks Al looks stunning when he's dead tired and covered in mud after stubbornly practising his flying in rain, hail or shine.

Al gathers his books and rushes off. Scorpius watches him go.

Scorpius has the morning off, and he's never really hungry until lunch time, so he settles in for a lazy morning in bed. Perhaps he'll get ahead on some of the never-ending readings for OWL-level Transfiguration. 

First, though, he pulls his spare trunk out from underneath his bed, flicking the latches open and withdrawing a clean set of Hogwarts shirt and trousers, a Slytherin scarf, and an emerald green jumper hand-knitted in chunky wool with a large letter A on the front. Scorpius wraps the scarf around his neck and breathes in the comforting scent of Albus.

It's several minutes later that he realises Al's school jumper isn't in his little stolen stash. It's sitting conspicuously on top of Al's trunk under his bed, folded haphazardly. Right in Scorpius' line of sight as he lies in his bed, facing his best friend's empty one.

Al can't possibly not have known where it was.


	3. originalsappho asked: prompt: draco is entangled in a mosquito net, harry is Confusion.

Harry and Draco are in a monogamous relationship.

This is a fact the mosquito living in their bedroom for the past several nights has consistently failed to respect.

She's a large one—so large Draco would have mistaken her for a male except that he has witnessed her landing on Harry (her meal of choice nearly every time) while they lie together in bed, and the angry red dots swelling into existence on his skin soon after. Only Draco gets to leave bite marks on Harry when they're in bed. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

They've tried all the charms, by now, and Harry has rejected each option: the repellant charms cast on the person make him itchy; the ones cast in the surrounding air emit a small buzzing noise that prevents him from sleeping; their mosquito is so clever as to avoid the zapping charms Draco dots around the room.

All this is prologue to the present moment, in which Draco is proving his excellent boyfriend skills. He has completed the first few steps of the plan already—one: research Muggle methods of keeping mosquitoes out. Two: find out where to buy the relevant equipment. Three: convert the correct amount of currency. Four: make his purchase. This leaves steps five, six and seven: install his purchase, position himself seductively beneath it when Harry arrives home, and reap the rewards of his labour.

Draco's extensive research led him to the mosquito net—a straightforward but surprisingly aesthetic solution to the problem. All he's left to do is hang it from the ceiling above the bed. A well-placed sticking charm seems to do the trick, and—

There really is so much netting, he thinks as he loses his balance trying to arrange it appropriately. In an assuredly uncharacteristic moment of inelegance, he goes down, taking the net with him. It wouldn't matter, except that the floo flares at that moment, and the sound of Harry's work boots advances quickly from the living room towards Draco.

He scrabbles with the netting entrapping him, but only manages to make it worse, limbs wrapped in the whitish mesh, face veiled like a Muggle bride.

He hears the door open. "Draco?" Harry asks. "What are you doing?"

"Surprising you," Draco grits out, trying to sound aloofly irritated rather than glum and embarrassed.

"Er," Harry replies. "So you are."


	4. mxlfoydraco said to henrymercury: Since Draco’s reactions were my absolute favorite in Haute Torture, my prompt suggestion is Draco walking in on Pansy/Narcissa, if you’d like to write about them again of course.

Draco's making his way to the kitchen to search out some early-afternoon breakfast-slash-hangover-remedy when he hears Pansy's voice coming from his mother's wing of the house.

"Are you sure?" she's asking. "It really is very tight."

"I can handle it," Mother replies. Her voice is low, breathless. Draco freezes in the hallway.

There's a bout of heavy breathing, a few little sighs, and Draco wants to know _what the hell is going on in there_ because his ever-vivid imagination is already assuming the worst—the worst being his best friend's hands all over his _mother_ , and _Merlin_ that is _not the hangover cure he was looking for_ —

"Let me know if I'm hurting you," Pansy says soothingly.

"I am not a breakable thing, Parkinson," Mother scoffs. "But I appreciate the concern."

There's more feeling in her voice now than Draco has heard there in a while—something more intimate, not so stiffly starched with pureblood composure. It's how she used to whisper to Draco's father, before the Dark Lord came to stay.

"You look stunning like this," Pansy says, too warmly and softly. Draco can't contain himself anymore. He marches through the doorway before he can stop himself, before he can remind himself of how much he _doesn't want to see_ whatever he'll find inside.

"I do think I preferred the pantsuit," Mother is saying when Draco bursts in.

She's fully dressed—albeit in a very fitted, nude-coloured dress. Heavy chandeliers dangle from her ears. Her eyes are darkly lined, the way Pansy's always are when she and Draco go out.  

"We'll agree to disagree, then," Pansy tells Mother, eyeing her up and down. "That dress fits like a fucking glove. Flaunt what you've got, is what I say. Oh, hey Draco. Don't you think your mum looks hot?"

Draco's mouth moves, but nothing intelligible comes out of it. He watches Pansy move in to carefully remove his mother's earrings, cradling the side of her neck unnecessarily as she does so. It's somehow _worse_ than if he'd walked in on them fucking, he thinks a little madly. Strangers fuck all the time. But painstakingly zipping up dresses, tucking loose wisps of hair tenderly behind ears... this is what _lovers_ do.

"Do you want a makeover too?" Pansy asks.

Draco shakes his head, already calculating the proper potion dosage to settle his stomach.


	5. chapter11freak asked: prompt uuhhhhh what about some bleville (blaise neville) + they've been dating for a bit but nobody knows so they invite the golden and silver trios to a bar or smth to tell them

Blaise Zabini, suave motherfucker born and raised, has been in love with modest human disaster Neville Longbottom for most of his life, if he's honest. They first kissed in sixth year, when Neville tripped into Blaise on an otherwise empty staircase and Blaise, with his arms suddenly and wonderfully full of cute boy, did his mother proud and made the best of the opportunity presented to him. After that, Neville and Blaise ran into each other—often literally—with satisfying frequency.

There's just never been an ideal moment to tell their friends. They're not quite the Romeo and Juliet that Harry and Draco are, but for all the fantasies of their relationship being well-received they've entertained in private over the years, they've never _actually_ fooled themselves into believing it'll be easy.

Except that now, they're sitting at the pub watching Harry and Draco absorbed in an argument over the ideal length of scarves that's nothing if not blatant foreplay; Ginny and Pansy wedged shoulder to shoulder in the corner of the booth as they buy into the fantasy Quidditch league devised by Ron and Millie; Greg listening adoringly as a tipsy Luna brainstorms their coordinated outfits for the upcoming Flint-Wood nuptials.

Somewhere along the line Blaise and Nev just kind of _forgot_ that they had no reason to hide anymore. They're remedying this tonight.

For starters, they've been holding hands under the table. Blaise squeezes Neville's hand, then drags it up onto the tabletop. Neville, for his part, leans into the crook of Blaise's neck, his soft hair tickling at Blaise's jaw. It's not exactly shocking that none of the ex-Gryffindors notice, but for a knot of self-proclaimed sharp minds, their ex-Slytherin friends are shamefully oblivious. In the end it's Luna who notices.

"I think you two make a lovely couple," she informs them, and taps Greg on the arm, "don't you agree?"

"You're a couple?" Greg squints at them. "Oi, Draco, did you know Blaise and Neville were a couple?"

"Since when?" Harry butts in.

"Oh," Blaise replies smoothly, enjoying himself, "since roughly six years ago."

" _Six—_ "

"Congratulations," Ginny cuts Pansy's exclamation off. "You guys seem really happy together."

They get supportive nods from all round the table before, slowly but surely, Draco and Harry are reabsorbed by their bickering, Pansy calls attention back to the auction for the privilege of claiming Ginny Weasley in the fantasy league, and Luna challenges the pub at large to a game of tipsy gobstones.

It's sad that if their sixth-year selves could see them now they'd find the easy acceptance around them now more shocking than the war which was then on the horizon.

Nev leans in for a kiss, warm and reassuring, when Blaise voices this thought.

"If my sixth-year self could see us now," he says, with the quiet confidence Blaise has so loved watching him grow into over the past few years, "he'd be glad to know he had something worth doing all that fighting for."


	6. Odes (fem!Drarry)

Harry likes Draco's hair. The way it glows as she strolls in and out of the orange pools of light poured down by the streetlamps, leaving a wispy trail of cigarette smoke behind her. The way it shines star-white in the overcast glare while she leans against the wall of the art gallery, a diva performing haughty impatience for all those who pass her by. Loose, her hair hangs down to her waist in straight, clean lines Harry's never really been able to understand. She'll watch Draco run her bone comb through it morning and night with both envy and puzzlement. If Harry were to do the same her hair would frizz up and suffocate her. Harry likes her own hair best when Draco's fingers are pulling through it with a rough sort of reverence; when Draco's breathing words like _I do so love your curls_ hot into Harry's ear and Harry forgets that she needs air to survive anyway.

Draco likes Harry's skin. The way it caramelises when she goes out flying in the summer and forgets her sunscreen potion. The way its warm brownness calls to mind well-baked bread and old wise trees and the rich soil in the veggie patch at the back of their house, where everything the pair of them have ever tried to plant has grown. Wet, Harry's body makes Draco think of amber—droplets borrowing her colour as she exits the shower. She'll stand there dripping semi-precious stones and Draco will watch her do things like brush her teeth, things so utterly mundane that she doubts she will every really be able to understand the beauty in them, even as her chest clenches with it. Draco's complexion always feels raw by comparison. Bone-china white and egg-shell delicate. Draco likes her own skin best when Harry's fingers are pressing into it with a rough sort of reverence; when she's printing a fresh claim into the easy willing canvas of it over the raised, ugly scars from when some irrelevant old wizard tried to make Draco his own, and Draco forgets that she ever tried to be anyone else's.


	7. untilourapathy asked: ehm neville trains blaise working @ madam puddifoot's tea shop?

Neville started working at Madam Puddifoot's while Hogwarts was being rebuilt for a few reasons. Tea was something he knew well, having been raised by his pureblood grandmother; it was something he liked, personally, especially the herbal teas he could grow himself; and, happily if a little guiltily, the shop is a safe haven from most of the people he knows from Hogwarts. He'd thought it sounded like the perfect opposite of fighting a war, but the reality of customer service hasn't entirely lived up to that expectation.

Neville's used to training new staff at this point. There's a bit of a turnover—Madam Puddifoot is very... particular. Her obvious soft spot for Neville is the only reason he's still here after stuttering at customers and dropping two handpainted cups and a teapot in his first week. What he's not used to is training _Blaise Zabini_.

Blaise Zabini, who appears to need no training at all in impeccable tea etiquette. Who saunters in on his first day, wraps one of the pink, frilled aprons around his slim waist and proceeds to glide about the kitchen like he owns it, popping out to chat so smoothly with the customers that they all fall over him. Neville has no idea why he's here; the Zabinis weren't involved in the war, having conveniently taken an extended holiday to the continent. That hasn't necessarily stopped the Ministry's broad reparations scheme from touching other Slytherin pureblood families' vaults, though, Neville supposes; it'd be rude to ask, but it's possible Blaise is here because he actually needs the money.  

"Where do these go?" Blaise asks Neville while he's putting a pot of honeysuckle tea on to brew.

Neville looks over and sees the teetering pile of cake plates in Blaise's hands and feels his eyes widen.

"Careful!" he says. "Just rest them on the bench!"

Blaise does this with seemingly no effort whatsoever. "I know how to handle precious things, Longbottom."

Ordinarily Nev would assume such a statement from a guy like Blaise was meant to be insulting—but there's something about Blaise's manner as he says it, something warm, and lacking in his usual wax-perfect exterior. He indulges in Neville's name as he says it, but not cruelly, as the likes of Malfoy always did.

Blaise comes forward in the narrow workspace, until he's right in front of Neville looking down from the handful of inches that he is taller than him.

"I've wondered for a while why you chose to work here," Blaise says quietly. "After the Battle I'm fairly certain you could do anything you like. You must have a reason for being _here_."

Neville's not sure how long Blaise could possibly have been wondering, given that he's only had two and a half shifts here and Nev's never noticed him come in as a customer. He'd remember a face like Blaise's, he's sure. Dark, with that golden undertone that lights his face from within. Slim, his jaw and cheekbones sharply cut. He has the blackest eyes and the broadest, most expressive mouth with its big, soft-looking lips.

"I like tea," says Neville. He doesn't fancy trying to explain the rest of it, but he does add, "and working here is... something different."

"It certainly is," Blaise agrees, agreeably. He's got that air of perpetual agreeableness about him. Neville finds it disconcerting sometimes, wonders about the motivation behind it—but mostly it serves to lift the mood and make him feel comfortable.

"Why are _you_ here," Neville counters.

Blaise performs a casual, elegant shrug. "There are certain experiences I want to have," he says.

"Like what, customer service?"

"It's less about the role, and more about the company."

There aren't many staff at Puddifoot's when Hogwarts isn't in session; the only ones who’ve been around for long are the Madam herself, Neville, and one of the very young Puddifoot cousins who mostly spends his shifts chatting to his boyfriend or his mates over the counter and otherwise exhibiting no desire whatsoever to be working the job. All in all, there's not much company for someone like Blaise to keep, here.

Neville only understands when he feels Blaise's fingers against his wrist, encircling it and lifting, ever so gently, until the back of Neville's hand reaches Blaise's mouth. Nobody's ever kissed Neville's knuckles before, but when combined with the way Blaise looks at him—searching, _wanting_ —Neville's pretty sure he's interpreting things right.

"Me?" he says. Squeaks, might be the more accurate way of describing it. " _Why_?"

Blaise looks almost offended, like he's insulted that Neville's insulting the person upon whom he's chosen to bestow his affections. "Why _not_?" he counters.

"I—"

A warning look stops him from uttering anything too self-deprecating. All the reasons this doesn't make sense whirl around in Neville's head, but he finds he can't actually pin down a single one of them.

"I don't know," he concludes, feeling stupid.

"I assure you there are plenty of reasons for my interest in you," Blaise says, lowering Neville's hand and letting it go. Neville misses his grip—so soft, made for handling precious things. "I'll expound upon them if you'll give me the chance."

It occurs to Neville all of a sudden that he's actually being asked out on a date.

"I... haven't considered anything like this before," he replies, honestly. "I don't really know what I want, so I don't know what to say to you."

Blaise smiles. "Will you think about it? That's all I ask."

Neville nods.

Then the bell on the door rings and several loud-voiced people enter, and Blaise is whipping off to greet them.

Neville hasn't a single _clue_ why a man like that would want to ask him out, but there's only one way to find out. And now that he's promised to think about it, now that he's started to, he thinks it might be impossible to stop.


	8. f/f/f Harry/Draco/Pansy

Draco and Pansy snort in unison at the state of Harry's hair.

"I'm feeling very attacked right now," Harry mutters, shuffling out of the bathroom, the thick white M-embroidered towel wrapped around her.

In front of the vanity in Draco's room, Draco and Pansy hold themselves like models in a magazine editorial. It's not a cover shoot: there's too much nipple peeking out from behind the sheer lacy cups of their bras for that. Pansy turns from side to side, examining herself. Her lingerie is black and strappy; Draco's is pastel blue and glitters in the light.

Pansy's body is so different from Harry's, so different from Draco's. Unlike the two of them, the underwire in Pans' bra serves a very real purpose. Her hair is dyed a deep purple. Her lips are plump, her brows thick and rectangular over her dark, monolidded eyes. Harry's seen her filling them in with pencil some mornings. Pans has also picked up a couple of tattoos from somewhere this past summer, while she travelled with Blaise—both of them in intimate ' _want to see my tattoo?—we'll have to find somewhere more private_ ' locations. Harry certainly never expected to find herself in bed with Pansy Parkinson on the regular, but here they are.

"Harry, darling, just let me—"

"No," Harry rushes to cut Pansy off. The last time she consented to a salon session with Pansy she ended up with bangs. At least, bangs is what she got whenever she tried to style it herself afterwards. "I'm fine."

Harry drags a brush through her hair, parts it down the side and then leaves it to dry naturally.

"You're a hot mess," Pansy disagrees, but Harry sees her eyes running up and down her frame when she drops her towel and starts stepping into her favourite pair of red boxers.

"So you admit that I'm hot," Harry throws her a wink, pulling her favourite loose round-the-house t-shirt on.

Pansy rolls her eyes, giving Harry a good view of the black pigment along to her waterline. The idea of putting makeup that close to her eyeball terrifies Harry, if she's honest. She'll face down dark wizards, but eyeliner? Mascara? These are not things she understands. They're also not things she feels the _need_ to understand—but she doesn't have to want them for herself to appreciate how they work for others. Pansy looks _really_ good.

Draco, the diva, has donned what looks like a white sheer dressing gown with fur trimming. She lounges back on her enormous four poster, sighing at feeling of the insanely soft royal blue fur throw against her milky skin. She rubs her hands down her stomach, teasing at the frilly edge of her underwear. Harry can already see her stiffening underneath the thin lace, as she watches Pansy—and Harry too—with eyes that are heavy-lidded but still keen.

"That's the worst shirt in the world, Potter," she drawls. "Take it off immediately."

"I only just put it on."

"And yet you've already been wearing it for far too long. I'll eat you out if you strip."

Harry, drinking in the sight of Draco sprawled out in front of her, gives a mental shrug and starts taking the outfit back off. It's not like it took her an hour to get dolled up like it does the other two.

In the end, it doesn't matter at all that Harry didn't style her hair.

*

"I've got to work," Draco whines. Her complaints grow a little louder with each layer of the heavy Ministry uniform she puts on. At the wave of her wand, long rows of buttons hook themselves through their holes, and expanses of crisp black fabric fall from her with perfect folds.

"You work in the fucking mail room," Pansy says, face down in a very plump pillow. "Nobody will even notice if you skip it."

"You've done it now," Harry mumbles, running her fingers lazily through Pansy's hair. It's so straight and thick and silky, and it always falls the same way which is incredibly novel for Harry. The heat that radiates from Pansy's scalp is nice, too; a reminder than for all she comes off as cold sometimes, she's really not made of stone.

"I am _in charge_ of the mail room for the entire _Ministry of Magic_ ," Draco says, very primly and much too _loudly_. Harry shoves her pillow over her head. "I would be _sorely missed_ if I abandoned my professional responsibilities to lie in like you two lazy sods."

"Alright, alright, you're fucking important. Bugger off and let us sleep."

"I'll be back at half past five," Draco informs them, as she does every weekday morning, before striding out towards the living room and the floo. "Try not to burn the place down."

"No promises," Harry calls after her. "What are you going to do today?" she asks Pansy.

Pansy shifts onto her side with an exaggerated amount of effort. "I've got a column due for _Young Witch_ mag: _six new ways to customise your school robes_. I've only come up with four so far."

"I could never do your job," Harry sighs, then glances at the clock up on the wall. There are twenty more minutes before she needs to get up, put away some breakfast and get herself to her Wednesday class on the proper preservation of crime scenes.

"No," Pans agrees. "You couldn't. Want me to do your hair?"

"It'll only get ruined. I've got a duelling practical after lunch."

"Ugh. I could never do _your_ job." Pansy nestles closer to Harry, throwing a proprietary leg over hers, rubbing the silky-smooth hairless skin of her calf over the rougher, hairier surface of Harry's. "Being told what to do all the time. Constantly putting myself in situations where my hair is at risk. Those red robes would clash horribly with my skin tone."

"You look good in the Auror robes," Harry chuckles, recalling one particularly interesting night of roleplay. "You said so yourself."

"That was all part of the scene," Pansy sniffs, but there's a proud little smile on her face nonetheless.


	9. Avant God / Testament Nouveau

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This came from a discussion earlier today in the drarry discord about this meme http://henrymercury.tumblr.com/post/172124907557/porcupine-girl-thelobsterqueen . It was suggested that I might be the depraved soul capable (and for reasons unknown, willing) enough to combine Dostoevsky's Jesus Christ Returns!AU with Carroll's math kink. Written with Wilde's 'only god can judge me, oh wait i’m an atheist' attitude.
> 
> This is irreverent and silly! Please don't read it if you're devoutly religious and likely to take offence. The same applies to those who are devoted to stories with proper pacing / stories which make sense.

It was nice that, this time around, the old man had died for him too, Harry sometimes thought. It was supremely uncharitable, and _of course_ he didn't _mean_ it—but it got old being born into prophecies where you had to suffer and die to save everyone. It was hard to suffer and be happy about it.

It was harder still to muster the enthusiasm to keep telling people things they weren't going to believe until they saw them. Harry had worn himself out the first time around, no matter how many years ago that had been. He'd worn himself out in school, warning everyone about Voldemort's return. Then he'd gone and died again, and come back again, and now that he was completely fucking _tired_ they all wanted a piece of him.

They wouldn't get it. If Ron and Hermione (disciples, they'd once have been called—but that was a bit patronising when it was Hermione who mostly taught Harry things, not the other way around) wanted to go over the story for the masses then they were welcome to, but Harry was done. And done was a very human thing to be. He was going back to school, and he might actually get to live his whole human life this time, and nobody was going to stop him from being the most normal man any son of any god ever was.

Cauldron-shopping was a very human activity. It was boring, but boredom was a very human thing to feel. Boredom was a luxury, really; reserved for those who weren't fighting for their lives during every waking moment and some of the sleeping ones too.

"Pewter cauldron," Harry read his list aloud to himself under his breath as he wandered a bit lostly up and down the long, narrow rows of tall shelves. "Silver cauldon. Set of six stirring rods. Flame-resistant gloves. Gardening gloves. One silver knife; small. Three steel knives; small, medium and large. Mortar and pestle..."

"Have you nothing left from your previous years of—admittedly lacklustre—Potion brewing?"

Harry turned around and found himself face to face with the only possible source of that familiar sneering voice. Draco Malfoy's hair was neat, but not as slick as it had used to be. His shirt was white and collared and clearly ironed by house-elf magic, and his...

...his apron said _Potage's Cauldron Shop_ in curly gold thread.

"You _work_ here?" Harry spluttered, gesturing his surprise so widely that he almost caused an avalanche amongst the replacement pewter cauldron legs.

Malfoy raised a haughty brow, gave Harry a look that almost drilled through his skull, and said, "Whatever gave it away?" in the most cutting tone possible. Still, Harry could see the way Malfoy curled in on himself despite trying to stand tall; crossed his arms defensively for all that he tried to pass it off as crossness.

Harry rolled his eyes. "It just took me by surprise, alright? I hadn't heard anything about it from anyone."

"Who, pray tell, did you expect to notify you about my life as a retail assistant, Potter?"

Harry could admit that the man had a point, but it still felt wrong not to be aware of his movements. Movements that were so unexpected.

"Are you coming back to school, then?" Harry asked. He didn't know _this_ either, and it all suddenly felt like a massive oversight. The mortal lack of omniscience was one of the things he'd never enjoyed that much, and as a result when curiosity came it didn't so much knock as bulldoze.

"No," said Malfoy, who, for perhaps the first time, didn't appear to have anything more to add.

"So, er, cauldrons?"

"So it would seem. Your supplies will cost you five hundred and fifty-one galleons, six sickles and a knut, unless you have anything else to add to the list."

"Is that a random number, Malfoy?" Harry asked. It was a boatload of money, several times more than his old Potions gear had cost him.

"Hardly," Malfoy looked half offended, half smug. "I simply assumed that _Our Lord and Saviour_ would require the very best equipment, considering his large inheritance and the fact that he needs all the Potions help he can possibly get. Our best pewter cauldron is eighty galleons. Our best silver cauldron is one hundred and forty five. Eighty for the stirring rods—though I could try to upsell you to a set of thirteen, if you'd like. The flame-resistant gloves are thirty-five, and the gardeners twelve; the steel knife set seventy-nine; mortar and pestle forty and we happen to have a very nice little silver knife reduced to just thirty-five galleons, six sickles and a knut. Be warned that if you don't shut your mouth some sort of insect will fly into it and _Potage's_ won't be liable for any harm caused."

Harry shut his mouth, teeth coming back together with a _clunk_. Malfoy hadn't cast a calculation charm; Harry would have seen that. He had really just done all the adding in his head based on Harry's shopping-list mumblings.

"Have you always been this smart?" Harry asked—and then fervently wished he'd taken Malfoy's advice for more than one lousy second, and kept his mouth closed for a bit.

"Yes, Potter, I have. But it's good to see that you're finally noticing the mere mortals around you."

"Sod off."

"Just speaking the truth according to you and all your little fans. If you ask me, you're just a man who was, upon his creation, given a god complex and a second helping of dumb luck in lieu of first helpings of style and grace."

Harry couldn't help the snort of laughter that left him. It was weirdly pleasant, talking to Malfoy like this. No wands drawn, no ragged wounds or shots to kill. Just sharp wit and a mutual desire to take the other down a peg or four. It was almost fun.

"What did you miss out on, then, when Dad gave you _your_ god complex?"

Malfoy's mouth twisted as Harry uttered the word _dad_ , but he said nothing of it. Harry's mouth would probably have done the same at the mention of old Lucius, so fair was fair.

"Is this your way of acknowledging that it couldn't possibly have been style or grace?" Malfoy replied instead. "A confirmation that even your limited powers of insight couldn't miss my good looks and charisma?"

"You wish."

"Maybe I do."

Harry stopped short at that. The look on Malfoy's face was still one of joking challenge, but his words didn't sound that way. Could he—? Was it possible that he really did want Harry to find him attractive?

"Five hundred and fifty-one galleons and how many sickles was it?" It felt cowardly, but Harry needed some time to think before he leapt in and made a mess of whatever in Dad's name this was. Somewhere up the other end of Diagon, he thought, Hermione was feeling proud of his restraint.

"Six. And a knut."

"Right." Harry pulled his coin purse out and unshrunk about two hundred galleons. He hadn't been expecting to need more than that just for school supplies. "How much would it be with your second best of everything?"

"Four hundred and twenty-six galleons, three sickles, two knuts. That includes the good silver knife though, since the discount brings it below the price of our next best option," Malfoy said a mere couple of seconds later, smooth and easy as though someone was feeding him lines and all he had to do was say them aloud.

"How do you do that? Figure it out so quickly? Do you get a lot of people coming through here with the same order?"

"If we got a lot of people coming through asking for our top-of-the-line products we'd have a much bigger shopfront," Malfoy pointed out, indicating the way his shoulders nearly brushed both sides of the narrow aisle. Malfoy had broad shoulders, Harry noticed. He'd grown into himself, now that he wasn't half-starved and all hollow in the face. At his trial, his hair had been so lank and dull-looking, his eyes shadowed, lips cracked and scabbing like he'd bitten through them. It'd been the difference between a roaring campfire and a spent pile of logs and kindling. Seeing it had made Harry feel a bit like he was dead again.

Malfoy took pity on him. "Mathematics has always come naturally to me," he explained. "It helped a great deal with Arithmancy and Potions at Hogwarts. It helps me here, too. It's not quite 'saving the world', but it's a talent I take some pride in."

"Saving the world is overrated," Harry shrugged. "I mean, been there done that. A couple of times now. And has it really made a difference?"

"There are those who say it has."

"Not you, though."

"I don't feel personally saved by you, Potter, don't worry. But I daresay I appreciate the absence of old Snakeface as much as the next person."

Harry nodded. "You look much better these days. Than you did right after. I mean, we all do, but. You look... you look good."

"Is it the apron?" Malfoy made a show of musing. "I do think I make it look rather dashing. I've got the hips for it."

Harry, who didn't need to be distracted by Malfoy's hips, just shook his head.

"Not an apron kink, then? Shame. But there must be _some_ reason you haven't walked away in a huff yet. The calculations, perhaps? Though if you had a competency kink you'd probably have shagged Granger by now... although. Hm."

Harry froze; he couldn't very well deny that it was the brilliant way Malfoy's mind manipulated numbers, that glimpse of near-omniscience that came with such effortless intelligence, that was... well, it was turning Harry right on. He didn't think he was physically capable of channelling such a lie into any form of movement whatsoever. He just stayed put as Malfoy's eyes widened in realisation, and he looked Harry up and down with... _approval_. Oh. _Oh._

"How-" Harry started, voice suddenly dry and catching in his throat. His heart beat a fluttering tattoo in his chest, pulse jumping in his throat. Every second was needle-sharp and intense. He hadn't felt this tuned in to any moment since facing down the devil in the Forbidden Forest. "How likely do you think it is—statistically—that something could happen between you and me?"

"There's a seventy-two percent likelihood that one of us will punch the other in the face sooner or later, if that's what you mean?" Malfoy said—but slyly, creeping closer to Harry just to lord his few superior inches over him.

"I think you know it isn't. Though I am interested to know how you arrived at that number."

"It was completely random," a bright, edged grin spread across Malfoy's face, but Harry only got to admire it for a second before Malfoy's mouth was pressing warmly down on his own, restoring his faith with shocking speed and accuracy.


End file.
